Magnitsky Amendment to Serious Crime Bill Introduced in the British Parliament

February 23, 2015

Mag­nit­sky Amend­ment to Seri­ous Crime Bill Intro­duced in the British Parliament

23 Feb­ru­ary 2015 – Dominic Raab MP and a group of 22 mem­bers of the British par­lia­ment from across all par­ties have sub­mit­ted an amend­ment to the Seri­ous Crime Bill, enti­tled the ‘Mag­nit­sky Amend­ment’. Co-spon­sors of the Mag­nit­sky amend­ment include no less than sev­en cur­rent Com­mit­tee Chairs includ­ing Rt Hon Kei­th Vaz MP (Home Affairs Com­mit­tee), Rt Hon Mar­garet Hodge MP (Pub­lic Accounts Com­mit­tee) and Rt Hon Sir Mal­colm Rifkind MP (Intel­li­gence & Secu­ri­ty Committee).

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/20142015/0160/amend/seriouscrimeaddednames.pdf

The Mag­nit­sky Amend­ment will require the gov­ern­ment to pub­lish the names of for­eign cit­i­zens who are not allowed to enter the UK due to their involve­ment in mon­ey laun­der­ing, seri­ous orga­nized crime, tor­ture and gross human rights abuses.

The Mag­nit­sky Amend­ment aims to ensure greater trans­paren­cy con­cern­ing indi­vid­u­als who have been denied entry to the Unit­ed King­dom. It builds on the rec­om­men­da­tion adopt­ed by the For­eign Affairs Com­mit­tee of the British Par­lia­ment in its report review­ing the government’s human rights poli­cies, which urged the pub­li­ca­tion of names of indi­vid­u­als banned from enter­ing the UK due to their involve­ment in the Mag­nit­sky case.

(http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmfaff/116/116.pdf ).

The Mag­nit­sky Amend­ment is also aimed to har­mo­nize British leg­is­la­tion with the U.S. Mag­nit­sky Act of 2012, which requires the US Gov­ern­ment to pub­lish a list of per­sons banned from entry to the Unit­ed States because of involve­ment in cor­rup­tion, includ­ing the cor­rupt crim­i­nal con­spir­a­cy uncov­ered by late Russ­ian lawyer Sergei Mag­nit­sky, respon­si­ble for Magnitsky’s tor­ture and death in Russ­ian cus­tody, and oth­er gross human rights abus­es. At the moment, the US gov­ern­ment has named 32 indi­vid­u­als banned from enter­ing the Unit­ed States under the U.S. Mag­nit­sky Act.

Explain­ing the Mag­nit­sky Amend­ment, Esh­er & Wal­ton MP Dominic Raab said:

“The British pub­lic doesn’t want the hench­men of mur­der­ers and tor­tur­ers, or their bag­men, slip­ping through UK bor­der con­trols, buy­ing up lux­u­ry apart­ments in Kens­ing­ton, send­ing their kids to pub­lic school here and gen­er­al­ly enjoy­ing the high life. Par­lia­ment has a chance to make sure peo­ple know who is being banned from enter­ing Britain, ensure basic moral prin­ci­ple trumps expe­di­en­cy, and send a mes­sage that we’re an open and tol­er­ant coun­try – but not for those with blood on their hands or dirty mon­ey in their pock­ets.”

Rt Hon Sir Men­zies Camp­bell QC MP, said: “This amend­ment would put paid to those whose seri­ous crim­i­nal acts abroad do not pre­vent them from vis­it­ing the Unit­ed King­dom. It is intol­er­a­ble that peo­ple whose behav­iour falls so far short of a prop­er respect for the sanc­ti­ty of life and demo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples should be able to vis­it Great Britain with­out hin­drance.”

William Brow­der, leader of the Mag­nit­sky jus­tice cam­paign and author of the best-sell­ing book, ‘Red Notice: How I Became Putin’s Num­ber One Ene­my’ said, “At the moment we can’t pros­e­cute the peo­ple who killed Sergei Mag­nit­sky and com­mit oth­er abus­es in Rus­sia because Putin pro­tects them, but Britain should­n’t let these peo­ple into the UK and the gov­ern­ment should make it pub­licly known that they are not wel­come here.”

The full list of co-spon­sors of the amendment:

Dominic Raab MP
Rt Hon Kei­th Vaz MP, Chair­man, Home Affairs Committee

Rt Hon Sir Mal­colm Rifkind MP, Chair, Intel­li­gence & Secu­ri­ty Committee
Rt Hon Mar­garet Hodge MP, Chair, Pub­lic Accounts Committee
John Wit­ting­dale MP, Chair, Cul­ture, Media & Sport
Dr Sarah Wol­las­ton MP, Chair, Health Committee
Charles Walk­er MP, Chair, Pro­ce­dure Committee
David Davies MP, Chair, Welsh Affairs Committee

Rt Hon Sir Men­zies Camp­bell QC MP
Sir Edward Gar­nier QC MP
RT Hon Nor­man Bak­er MP
Rt Hon Ben Brad­shaw MP
Tes­sa Munt MP
Steve Bar­clay MP
Sir Peter Bot­tom­ley MP
Andrew Rosin­dell MP
Tim Loughton MP
Nick de Bois MP
Zac Gold­smith MP
Dr Julian Lewis MP
Dr Phillip Lee MP
Jacob Rees-Mogg MP

Sergei Mag­nit­sky was a lawyer for the Her­mitage Fund, the largest for­eign port­fo­lio investor in Rus­sia. In 2008, he uncov­ered how a group of Russ­ian offi­cials and crim­i­nals stole three invest­ment com­pa­nies from his client and $230 mil­lion they had paid in tax­es to the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment. Russ­ian offi­cials exposed by Sergei Mag­nit­sky had him arrest­ed on false charges. He was kept in deten­tion for 358 days and killed on 16 Novem­ber 2009. Russ­ian offi­cials involved in his case were pro­mot­ed and giv­en state hon­ours in Rus­sia. In the Unit­ed States, they have been sanc­tioned under the Unit­ed States Sergei Mag­nit­sky Rule of Law Account­abil­i­ty Act, which denies them U.S. visa and blocks their assets in U.S. finan­cial institutions.

The strug­gle for jus­tice in Mag­nit­sky case is described in the thriller by Bill Brow­der, Red Notice, which has reached No 8 on New York Times best-sell­er list in the first two weeks since its launch and No 9 on the Sun­day Times best sell­er list in the UK.

For more infor­ma­tion, please contact:

Mag­nit­sky Jus­tice Campaign

+44 2074401777

e‑mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

web­site: www.lawandorderinrussia.org

Face­book: http://on.fb.me/hvIuVI

Twit­ter: @KatieFisher__

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